Abstract

The current study aims to examine the use of chunks and the extent of repetition in Korean middle school English textbooks. Also, the number of chunks shared by three publishers is examined. To create the corpora, 9 textbooks from three publishers were filed and processed by Simple Concordance Program. The results showed that chunk expressions were repeated 3.6 times on average. Most collocations occurred only one to two times throughout the same series of textbooks. Fixed-expressions showed similar results to those of lexical expressions, while semi-fixed expressions were shown relatively higher frequency rate than the other chunks. Regarding the repetition of chunks, most chunks were reused over 2 or 3 units. The number of chunks shared by three publishers in common was not many. It can be inferred that there were no agreed criteria for the selection and repetition of chunks among the textbook writers. The national curriculum works as a guideline, but the process of selecting items seems to be highly subjective and conducted without the consideration of repetition rate.

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